UK defence secretary walks away from Gaza spy flight questions

Britain’s defence secretary, John Healey, walked through oncoming traffic to escape questions about why the UK is still sharing military intelligence with Israel.

Healey told Declassified he had “nothing more to add” about the hundreds of Royal Air Force (RAF) surveillance flights over Gaza.

The flights have continued despite Keir Starmer’s government placing sanctions on two far-right Israeli ministers whose roles include national security and defence.

Watch our interview with John Healey

Healey was questioned about the flights after leaving a cabinet meeting in Downing Street yesterday.

Flanked by two security guards, he narrowly avoided a lorry as he hurried across Whitehall towards his office in the Ministry of Defence.

When first asked about the RAF’s spy flights, the defence secretary responded by simply saying “good morning”.

But when Declassified pressed him, he said: “I’ve made entirely clear to parliament the nature of those flights; the restrictive nature of the intelligence linked to finding and helping free hostages. And I’ve got nothing more to add.”

John Healey walks in front of moving traffic while trying to swerve Phil Miller’s questions as Alex Morris films. (Photo: Martin Williams / Declassified UK)

Despite Healey’s claim, there is no evidence that any hostages have been found by the more than 500 spy flights that take off from an RAF base in Cyprus.

And the only British nationals among the hostages were either killed during Israeli military operations, or freed in the “ceasefire” earlier this year.

Meanwhile, UK foreign secretary David Lammy has acknowledged that Israeli forces are unlikely to secure the release of the remaining hostages.

Last month he told parliament: “Whatever Israeli ministers claim, this is not the way to bring the hostages safely home. Nearly all the hostages have been freed through negotiations, not military force.”

A group of Israeli military intelligence officers said this week they would no longer participate in combat operations in Gaza as Benjamin Netanyahu’s government had given the hostages a “death sentence” and its orders were “clearly illegal”.

“I’ve got nothing more to add”, Healey tells our reporters. (Photo: Martin Williams / Declassified UK)

Support

As defence secretary, John Healey has continued to allow “a limited number” of Israeli troops to attend military training courses in the UK, it was revealed in parliament yesterday.

Healey has also developed strong relations with his Israeli counterparts.

New documents obtained by Declassified show his intention last year to “progress our bilateral Defence relationship”.

He even flew to Tel Aviv last August to meet the then Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Gaza.

According to Gallant, the pair discussed their “commitment to maintaining and further strengthening cooperation in a number of strategic and military areas”.

Afterwards, Healey spoke of his “support for Israel’s security” and said the UK government would “not alter our unshakable commitment to support Israel’s right to self-defence”.

Healey was also instrumental in blocking a full arms embargo against Israel. In a letter to the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, he said that such a move would “undermine US confidence in the UK and NATO at a critical juncture in our collective history and set back relations.”

He added: “It is not possible to suspend licensing F-35 [fighter jet] components for use by Israel without wide impacts to the whole F-35 programme.

“Such a suspension of F-35 licensing leading to the consequent disruption for partner aircraft, even for a brief period, would have a profound impact on international peace and security.”

John Healey shakes hands with Israel’s then defence minister, Yoav Gallant, 2 August 2024. (Photo: Yoav Gallant / X)

Interviews

When he was apprehended by Declassified yesterday, Healey also defended his refusal to do a full sit-down interview about the UK’s continued intelligence sharing with Israel.

He claimed: “I think you’d be hard-pressed to come up with another cabinet member who’s done more sit-down interviews with the media in the last two or three weeks than me as defence secretary because we face very difficult times – changing world, increasing threats.”

However, none of these interviews have addressed the Gaza spy flights, or the UK’s intelligence sharing with Israel.

The defence secretary has repeatedly refused Declassified’s requests for a formal interview and cut off our questions yesterday when he walked into the Ministry of Defence offices.

After taking Healey behind closed doors, his security guards returned to check if filming had stopped and asked who we were.

The ‘doorstep’ interview follows Declassified’s questioning of Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, Britain’s chief of the defence staff, in April.

Radakin refused to answer questions about the RAF flights for more than two minutes, saying: “I don’t really have time for this conversation”.

Backbench MPs have also struggled to glean details from ministers – even on the cost of UK military activities – while chairs of parliament’s powerful defence and foreign affairs committees have simply failed to quiz officials on this issue.

Government responses have been limited to claiming the surveillance flights are trying to help Israel find hostages held by Hamas.

However that explanation looked increasingly unlikely after flights continued during this year’s ceasefire while hostages were being released and their locations broadcast live on television.

RAF spy flights over Gaza this week have occurred in the midst of Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians queuing for aid. Others were bombed in their beds.

A weeping Palestinian boy at Nasser hospital told reporters yesterday: “I was lying down, about to fall asleep. Then they came and bombed us. What did we do? Why did they bomb us?”